Got My Hands On My New Amiga Today :)

[mrbob2]

Well, its not quite Amiga hardware but its the next best thing.

My story is a long one, so i shall start at the beginning

after getting my first pc in 2001 and discovering WINUAE iv been emulating ever since. Of course, WINUAE worked perfectly well on my old pc, even though it was old and creaky to emulate the amiga did not require too much power so all worked well.

A few years later laptops started to become popular and affordable and ever since then, my pc is turned on rarely. Laptops are so much more "convenient" so emulation was done on there.

My laptop is great for emulation but i always wanted something more portable. I toyed with Amiga emulation on my android tablet and galaxy s4 and whilst it was possible, it wasnt perfect. Far too much fiddling and most stuff didnt run.

I realised that the premium emulator was always going to be WINUAE so i got myself a netbook. It was very nice, portable and pretty much spot on, however the atom 1.6ghz cpu struggled with audio and with 3d games like alien breed 3dii it wasnt as smooth as i would have liked.

I was running out of ideas until i noticed this tablet....

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/dell-venue-8-pro/pd?oc=cnv8p01

Its a tablet running windows. Sure, everyone has heard of windows 8 RT and how awful it is, rubbish sparse windows apps etc but....

BUT!

this little beauty is running FULL windows 8.1!

I ordered the £249 32gb model and then did my research. Bit of a mistake as my research discovered that after windows was installed it left around 10-12 gb free. Not great as my amiga adf`s folder is around 12gb in size.

So i changed it to the 64gb model at £268 and its great! had 40gb free so filled that with emulators for bbc, specrtrum, snes megadrive, nes, masterstsystem, amstrad, atari, gameboy, GBA, GBC and of course my beloved AMIGA!

The device has a micro SD slot so i could insert a 64gb card and free up my drive but im happy with 2gb free. For now.

Emulation is perfect. My Workbench and Work drives needed changing, and rom paths etc but everything is working great.

There is only 1 microUSB slot on the tablet, so you would need either a powered USB hub to connect keyboard, mouse and joystick for emulation.

I have since purchased a bluetooth mouse and keyboard so i can just plug in the joypad.

You have a virtual keyboard you can call up from windows to press F12 to enter WINUAE or press F1 to select an item from a trainer, but a keyboard and mouse is always better.

The tablet loads in about 5 seconds and shuts down virtually instantly.

Its 8" so perfect for portable emulation. I thought it would be too small but its actually really good. I was thinking of getting an 11" venue pro tablet but that would have been heavier, less portable due to bigger size and twice as much money.

Battery life is good. Had it on for hours and only gone down about 10%.
Its a fantastic little emulation device and perfect for portable amiga emu.

Just thought i would tell folks about this and answer any questions if you guys are thinking of getting one.

[john4p]

Originally Posted by mrbob2

Battery life is good. Had it on for hours and only gone down about 10%.
Its a fantastic little emulation device and perfect for portable amiga emu.

Really looks great. Portable WinUAE plus Windows-classics like Diablo II and Heroes of Might & Magic 3.
Very tempted to get one.

It would be absolute perfection if its display was capable of 50hz. Hope that's possible somehow.

[tin]

Nearly bought one on the strength of the OP. but then dell forgot to mention VAT + delivery until the last moment and suddenly £220 became nearly £300. No deal.

[Amiga1992]

Might as well get the latest ASUS Transformer, it comes with a keyboard/mousepad and it's based around the same Intel Atom "Bay Trail" architecture. Or just wait until more models come out, I don't know if any of the currently available models have the versions of these processors that take 4GB of RAM as max instead of just 2.

[Zak]

How is the Dell quality?

[john4p]

http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/16/d...-8-pro-review/

[mrbob2]

Originally Posted by tin

Nearly bought one on the strength of the OP. but then dell forgot to mention VAT + delivery until the last moment and suddenly £220 became nearly £300. No deal.

I dont understand how you got charged like that?

My invoice is
subtotal £219
Freight £2.00
VAT £44.00
Total £265.20


All i paid for a 64gb model was 265.20.

Yes the ASUS transformer is as good/better but the 32gb model on amazon is £329 and the latest model the asus tf700 is 799 brand new and 350 second hand.

The reason why i like the dell is that is cheap and it does the job. I dont want it running battlefield 4, encoding dvds in 5 mins or any high end games to be honest, my PC does that job.

The tablet is a small portable amiga emulation device that also does other things

I read the review posted earlier and its pretty much what i would agree with, although i have no "firmware issues" or found any bugs.

Its just windows isnt it? lol iv already updates it several times through windows updates and its running fine.

I have a bluetooth mouse, a bluetooth keyboard hooked up to it, so amiga emulation is great. I have a powered usb hub (needed) if i want to attactch more peripherals, but all i really use in the slot is a joypad for my games.

A full size tablet for me is too big and heavy. The dell feels like a cross between a phone and a tablet, a phablet. Very light and feels portable.

If a new version came out with 8gb of ram and a 2gb geforce gpu for £200 more, i wouldnt care. As amiga emulation is perfect, i dont need any more power

Once you start installing lots of windows app, games etc it becomes like my laptop, full of crap and bloated. Thats why the tablet is kept as a simple device.

I would have liked more than 1 usb port but all tablets these days seem to restrict the user, i dont know if its due to cost cutting, but with bluetooth or a powered usb hub you can get around it.

I would have prefered a proper power cable, you cant power the tablet and use the usb port at the same time. I have used the tablet for quite a few hours with emulation etc and the battery is great. Not had it below 70% yet as i charge it once im done back to 100%

I tried to get 2 of my fave games working, toca touring cars 2 and superbikes 2001 and they both crash horribly. I can get them running on windows7 quite happily with a patch, but i think windows 8.1 is not as friendly.

I was tempted to wipe it and install windows7, whats the worst that could happen?

then i read that dell hasnt released the touchscreen drivers yet so my screen wouldnt work to touch, and i really cant be fussed messing around for the sake of 2 old games.

My other favorite game, pro evolution soccer 6 works fine. Nice to have a quick blast with playstation 2 pad.

Ive tried pairing with a ps3 pad via bluetooth but i think there are driver issues so no joy there.

Build quality is great. To be honest theres not much too it. The screen is nice n shiny, tablet feels solid and well made.

The display brightness seems to have a mind of its own, i set it to the lowest setting in my power option, and when booted it goes to max brightness. Theres not a massive difference between bright and dull so not an issue.

Like i said before, there are and will be soon more powerful tablets in 2014, but it does its job for me and is very cheap. I already have smart phones, android/iphone, android tablet, laptop, pc etc so i wanted something "different" and didnt want to spend a big budget the other tablets require at even 32gb they cost more.

I would quite like an Amiga 600 case for it. That would be sweeeet